July 2011 Proposed Migration from Print to Electronic - Oxford University Press

We will soon be subscribing to Oxford Journals Online, a collection of over 180 full text journals. A number of these journals duplicate titles which we subscribe to in print. In keeping with our policy outlined below, we have evaluated all the titles on a number of criteria, and have created a list of proposed print cancellations.We encourage all faculty and departments to examine this list carefully for titles of interest to you. Please let us know by August 15, 2011 if you have any concerns about maintaining a particular title in its print format.

We have recently subscribed to over 1500 new electronic journals from Taylor & Francis. A number of these journals duplicate titles which we subscribe to in print. In keeping with our policy outlined below, we have evaluated all the titles on a number of criteria, and have created a list of proposed print cancellations.We encourage all faculty and departments to examine this list carefully for titles of interest to you. Please let us know by May 20, 2011 if you have any concerns about maintaining a particular title in its print format.

The UFV Library recognizes the growing importance of electronic information resources to the scholarly community. Many scholarly journals are now available electronically, and UFV faculty and students have been enthusiastic users of the titles that have been made available through the Library. In acquiring electronic journal access, the Library has been able to make many thousands of journals available that would otherwise be obtainable only through interlibrary loan. For example, as of April 2011 we subscribe to approximately 560 journals in print, but electronically we have access to approximately 42,000 journal titles. In addition to providing access to much more scholarly content, electronic journals are also available to faculty and students from their desktops, whether they are on campus or at home. This ability to access scholarly literature without the restrictions of time or place is a great advantage.

As the Library acquires electronic journal packages, we find that there are some titles available in electronic format that we continue to subscribe to, and pay for, in print. Rather than duplicate these resources, we propose to cancel the print version when the electronic format provides acceptable access to the content, as outlined in the criteria below. Savings from the cancellation of the print titles will go towards the licensing of online packages, both existing and additional. Access to expanded content is the overall goal of this process.

This practice of judiciously canceling print subscriptions in favor of electronic is taking place at academic libraries across North America and Europe. Both the UBC and SFU libraries have undergone significant cancellation initiatives in the past several years. The guidelines proposed below borrow heavily, with permission, from those used successful by the SFU Library.

Guidelines

Considering the above points, print journal titles will normally be discontinued when the electronic equivalent meets the following criteria:

Content - All of the journal's articles must be provided and issued no later than the paper version. Other content deemed important to UFV users, such as letters, supplements, calls for papers, association announcements, etc., should be included in the electronic version or accessible via the Internet.

Stability - There must be a reasonable guarantee of the stability of our access to the electronic journal. For this reason, journals available electronically only in aggregated databases will not normally be considered as part of this process. Aggregated databases are those in which content is licensed from the publisher or producer by a third party and resold as part of a package. Some current examples at UFV are Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, and Canadian Business and Current Affairs.

Access - Journal content, must be easily accessible (e.g. not requiring passwords) at the desktop both on- and off-campus.

Archival Availability - Content for the subscribed years must be owned by the library.

Image Quality - Illustrative materials (tables, photographs, artistic renderings, etc.) must be included in a legible and desktop accessible format. The quality of these images or other graphics must be of a reasonable standard to meet needs of UFV users.

Printing capability - The content must print from personal workstations or networked printers utilized at UFV.

The following criteria may also be considered in a decision to cancel or retain the print version.

Effective search capability for the electronic version.

Electronic version should facilitate browsing, if this is deemed to be an important use of the journal.

The electronic version should not be unwieldy, such as requiring too many clicks to access content.

Advertising on the electronic site should not be intrusive.

The journal is used for specific scholarly purposes that require print copies, such as study of the physical artifact.

Circulation and in-library use data indicate continued heavy use of the print.

Popular reading better suited to the print format.

Procedures

The librarians will develop a list of print journals that have an electronic version that meets the criteria outlined above. These journals will be identified as candidates for cancellation.

Faculty members will be notified that these print journals may be cancelled, and will be given a period of time in which to respond and defend any titles they feel should remain available in print format.

The librarians will consider the input of faculty before making the recommendation to cancel or retain the print version. The final decision rests with the Director of Library Services. Any faculty member who had made a submission will be notified as to the decision.

These guidelines are consistent with, and fall under the UFV Library Collection Policy BRP-240.07, approved January 2005 by University College Council.